Contents

Priorities

The Scottish Government worked with members of the national
Parental Engagement Steering Group to map the main sources of
information for parents.

Diagram 1: Key sources of information /advice for
parents

The group concluded that for many parents the main source of
information - and their most trusted source - will be their child's
headteacher (or head of establishment) and their child's class
teacher or keyworker.

The national priorities and actions in this plan therefore
concentrate on providing practical parent-friendly information:

a) to heads of establishment and education practitioners,
and;

b) to Parent Councils, the wider parent forum and the local
community.

The plan focuses on three key priorities:

Priority 1

Explaining what the National Improvement Framework is,
why it has been developed, and where it is relevant to
parents

Priority 2

Answering the questions that are most important to
parents and families.

Priority 3

Supporting good quality dialogue between parents,
teachers and head-teachers

Parents of children in Gaelic Medium Education (
GME) will have
their own specific needs in relation to communicating the key
messages about framework. This should be taken into account by
national, regional/local organisations as well as schools.
Additional bespoke communication plans and activities for parents
of children in
GME will be
developed under this plan.

Priority 1:Explaining what the National Improvement Framework is, why
it has been developed, and where it is relevant to
parents

Some of language associated with the improvement framework can
be highly technical and difficult for parents to relate to. It can
include professional or organisational terms which can serve to
create additional barriers. As national agencies begin to implement
the framework - and as schools engage with parents and other
partners - they will need to provide straightforward, practical
information to parents and carers. They should seek to explain in
very practical terms what the framework means for parents and their
children. Communication about the framework - indeed, communication
with parents about any aspect of education - should be relevant to
parents, developed in partnership with parents themselves and
should use plain English, jargon-free explanations.

The national improvement framework for education
is…

What does this mean for you and your
child?

A way to gather better information to help to improve
Scottish education.

Across all of Scotland's schools, it is
about each and every school considering what they need to
do to improve and what support they need to improve.

For
your child, it is about making sure that
they:

have the best start in life;

develop their literacy and numeracy skills (reading,
writing, listening and talking, maths and number skills),
and;

have the right range of skills, qualifications and
achievements to allow them to succeed.

For your child's school, it is about making
sure that those who lead the school know how well they are
doing and what they need to do next.

At national level we will take the following steps:

1.

Scottish Government and Education Scotland will work with
the National Parent Forum of Scotland to promote and
distribute its
Nutshell on the National Improvement
Framework. The National Parent Forum will make
further changes to the Nutshell in response to the evolution
of the framework.

2.

Scottish Government and Education Scotland will work with
the National Parental Engagement Steering Group to provide
parent-friendly explanations for all of the
improvement framework themes. The explanations will
seek to answer questions such as: "What does this mean?";
"Why should I be interested as a parent?"; "What are the key
questions from parents?". There will also be a jargon buster
for heads of educational establishments, Parent Councils and
Parent Teacher Associations.

At school level, this will mean providing straightforward
explanations of what is meant by improvement at school level.
Rather than attempting to translate the technical terms within the
framework, schools may wish to focus on the behaviours and
experiences that lie at the heart of the improvement framework.

Priority 2:Answering the questions that are most important to parents
and families.

Discussions with members of the National Parental Engagement
Steering Group identified
parental engagement and
assessment of children's progress as the two key
themes that are likely to be of greatest interest to parents and
carers.

Parental engagement

Communication on this theme should focus on what it really means
for parents and schools, namely:

good quality communication between home and school;

on-going, effective and meaningful reporting to parents about
their child's progress;

practical advice and support to parents to help with learning
in the home;

opportunities for parents to be involved as equal partners in
activities to improve learning for children across the
school;

support for family learning programmes, where this is
appropriate to the needs of parents and families;

opportunities for parents and families to volunteer and to
make a contribution towards the life and work of the school,
and;

opportunities for parents to be involved in making important
decisions related to their local school.

Assessment of Children's Progress

The Scottish Government's aim is to establish a rounded picture
of how children and young people are progressing in all aspects of
their life and learning. National standardised assessments, as one
part of this wider picture, have received a large amount of
coverage in the media. The assessments will provide one source of
information - alongside a range of other sources of information -
to inform teachers' judgement of progress in aspects of reading,
writing and numeracy. Communication on this theme will aim to
provide a comprehensive picture of the various aspects of
children's progress that will be measured. This includes what
assessment is (and what it is not) and what achievement of a
curriculum for excellence level means. It will aim to explain the
role that will be played by standardised assessments as part of a
broader package of information. Finally, it will seek to answer the
practical questions that may be posed by parents and carers about
standardised assessments

At national level we will take the following steps:

3.

We will promote the
important role played by parents across all six of
the improvement framework drivers. This will be
emphasised in all communications with headteachers and
schools.

4.

Scottish Government and Education Scotland will consult
with parent organisations on a
parents' pamphlet on assessment accompanied
by a
question & answer document. This will
include answers to the practical questions that parents may
have about standardised assessment.

At school level this is likely to mean answering the practical
questions that parents are likely to post. For example:

On parental engagement:

What does this mean to me?

What is my role as a parent in my children's learning and in
their school?

What support and advice should I expect to receive from my
child's school to help me support my child/children and to
support my family to be involved in the life and work of my
child's school?

The third priority is to support good quality discussion with
parents and families about the vital contribution that parents can
play in improving their local school.

At national level we will take the following steps:

5.

Education Scotland will work with parent organisations to
develop
national guidance to schools and local authorities on
reporting to parents by January 2017. In line with
the principles within this plan, the guidance will emphasise
the importance of dialogue between parents, teachers and
other practitioners.

6.

Education Scotland and Scottish Government will work with
all partners to consider the specific
role of Parent Councils at the heart of improvement
in their local school. This will include discussions
with the Scottish Parent Teacher Council to learn lessons
from their Partnership Schools initiative and to consider the
findings from the National Parent Forum's review into the
2006 Parental Involvement Act.

7.

Education Scotland will work with parent organisations in
making further updates to the
Parentzone Scotland website to reflect the
introduction of the National Improvement Framework. This will
include plain English explanations of terms such as
achievement of a level, and broad general education. The
information will be provided in a way that is relevant and
meaningful to parents, providing appropriate context and
explanation. The publication scheme will be developed with
the Parentzone Scotland Strategic Stakeholder Group which
includes parent organisations.

At school level this will mean creating opportunities for
productive conversations with parents about what is important to
them and what role they would like to play. Again, the focus should
be on answering practical questions, demonstrating the
collaborative approach that lies at the heart of the framework.